Israeli High-Tech Pioneer Efraim Arazi Dies

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Efraim "Efi" Arazi, a pioneer of Israel's powerful high-tech industry who helped develop technology that allowed for a video recording of the first moon landing, has died. He was 76.

Arazi founded three groundbreaking high-tech firms, Scitex, Electronics for Imaging, and iMedia, each specializing in aspects of digital photography or video.

Although Arazi did not complete high school, he was accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an "extraordinary case," said Nehemia Shtrasler, an economics commentator who knew him. Arazi petitioned NASA for funds to develop a camera that was used to broadcast Neil Armstrong's steps on the moon in July 1969, he said.

Arazi died late Sunday and was buried in central Israel on Monday, the media said.